for the record

Someone forwarded me this story from thealarmclock.com about a company called Ooma, and then my RSS reader showed me this one today from VentureBeat. Since the thealarmclock.com story cites some not so accurate data, I wanted to pipe up and make it so.

The story is basically about Ooma having raised a partial series B, $12 million of an $18 million round. And this next part in quotes:

"It appears that a switch in direction is at hand as the company lost its CEO - Michael Cerda - and head of engineering - Spero Koulouras - last year....The company raised $7.8M in Series A funding back in 2005, which has us wondering what did they spend all that money on and not yet have a product or a logo?"

The real stuff:

-I co-founded Ooma in Fall 2003 with Andrew Frame. We got seed funding in December 2003. I was the company's CEO from Fall 2003 until about April 2004. At that time we hired Jim Long to be our CEO. With Jim at the helm, I became the VP of Business Development, and stayed until late 2004.

-Prior to Jim joining, I had assembled an initial team:

(And as you can see there was a logo;)

-By late 2004, the market opportunity we first saw had narrowed significantly in my view. We were also running out of our seed money, and struggled to close a series A. With just a few bucks left in the bank, salary levels were dropping in order to allow us some runway. In hopes to provide Andrew and Jim additional runway to pull off a financing, I left. Of course, I had a family to support, so stability had something to do with it too. Jim left the company not too long after that.

-Spero Koulouras wasn't part of that initial team. He signed on in about April of 2004. I know this because I was interviewing Spero for a potential of VP of engineering slot at my new company (Jangl), which was fund raising. Spero did in fact part with Ooma later in 2004.

-Once I left Ooma, I went and did some consulting for David Beckemeyer at Televolution. I wasn't sure whether I would stay full time, but was helping David flesh out a plan. The only reason I knew David would have me, was because six months prior, Andrew and I were feeling him out about joining us. Since he was working on his own thing, he wasn't interested; he did hint at needing a guy like me though. Ironically, the word I continue to "hear" out of the Ooma camp is that I went to a competitor and gave them the Ooma idea. Not true.

-It turns out that me leaving the payroll to provide more life blood was useful. By January 2005, Andrew pulled a rabbit out and got it funded, which is the series A the stories mention. It was truly an amazing accomplishment. Last guy standing, not more than a few grand left in the bank, and wham - he did it. This should be in a book someday. It's a perfect example of someone's survival instincts setting in and diving for the catch.

-I don't know for sure whether the company has changed directions, as I'm no longer in touch with Andrew or the company, but wish them every success.

Technorati Tags: Ooma, startups, televolution, thealarmclock.com, venturebeat

Comments

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And good point, in that viral does have a simple definition about pass-along that seems to nonetheless confuse people (primarily because some are looking to make it the next "brand-building," perhaps a useful term but one that people want to write all their failures off as successes by putting them under that category).

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Impressive blog! -Arron